My recent research into coal mines in the Bridgeville area has been focused on underground (shaft) mining and, indeed, that was the primary method used prior to the 1930s. It neglected the portions of the Pittsburgh Seam close to the level of Chartiers Creek, too deep for surface mining and too shallow for shaft mining. A new technique (strip mining) had to be adopted. The first step for this technique was to use a large power shovel to remove a long (several hundred feet) strip of overburden (usually about ten feet thick) and perhaps forty feet wide, piling the overburden…

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A recent donation to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society is a 1916 Pennsylvania Department of Mines brochure entitled “Index of the Bituminous Coal Region”. Included in it is a map locating significant coal mines, accompanied by a table listing their names. This prompted me to do some research on the mines in the Bridgeville area. This gave me a list of twelve mines; further research turned up four more on the Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas. An additional source was the 1891 Census Bulletin entitled “Mines and Mining – Bituminous Coal in Pennsylvania”; it added four more. Some of these are…

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I have been interested in multi-cultural events for many years; the performance of “Akutagawa” at the CAPA theater last Sunday was one of the most memorable I can remember. Presented by the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6-12, it was a unique multi-media retrospective of the work of Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892 to 1928), the acknowledged “father of the Japanese short story”.   It would be difficult to imagine a production with more different dimensions, or, perhaps we should say, layers. First, of course, is the exposure to a different ethnic culture. I…

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It was my privilege to make a presentation to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society last Sunday; my subject was the impact of three early railroads on this area in the early days – The Chartiers Valley Railroad; The Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny Railway; and the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway.  In 1830, at a time there were only four railroads in the world (three in England and the 23 miles long Baltimore and Ohio in North America), a group of prescient businessmen in Washington, Pa., led by John Ewing, concluded that a railroad connecting their fair city with Pittsburgh would be…

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Two weeks ago I lamented the loss of memorabilia when the twin oak trees in my back yard demolished my storage shed and much of its contents. Fortunately some of the things in the storage shed were salvageable, but a wee bit soggy. My collection of thirty-two Pittsburgh Pirate score cards from the 1940s and 1950s is currently spread out on my dining room table and appears to be in respectable shape. They are too valuable to lose; I must find a permanent home for them. The earliest scorecard is from 1945. Frankie Frisch was the Pirates’ manager; his team…

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The earliest document in the collection of Bridgeville High School Yearbooks at the Bridgeville Area Historical Society History Center has been a very informative one produced by the Class of 1926. For a long time I have had a vague recollection of seeing a 1925 Yearbook during a Boy Scout paper drive during World War II. Sure enough, Dana Spriggs finally vindicated me by spotting one on EBay, acquiring it, and forwarding it to the Society. Once again he must be nominated as “Benefactor of the Year”. It turns out to be a handsome eighty-two-page brochure, in excellent condition. We…

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The first week of 2023 has turned out to be much too exciting for me. On Tuesday morning I woke up to find that two massive oak trees in my back yard had uprooted and fallen, away from the house. One had demolished half of a storage shed; the other was precariously threatening the remaining half. On Wednesday it completed the damage. These were lovely, thirty-inch diameter trees, probably nearly three hundred years old. When I reported this to the insurance adjuster, she requested that I make a list of the personal items that were destroyed in the shed and…

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It’s hard to believe we have made it through another year and are faced with the challenge of dating our checks 2023 (those of us old-fashioned enough to still use checks to pay our bills). The past year wasn’t quite as difficult as its predecessors. Covid is still with us, but fatalities have finally decreased enough to make it seem almost endurable. For us structural engineers it will always be the year of the Fern Hollow Bridge. Early Friday morning, January 28, I received a text message from Don Toney, “Turn on your TV, a bridge has collapsed in Frick…

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My best Christmas gift this year was spending the holiday with Beth’s and Sara’s families at the ski house on Donner Lake. No one is more blessed than I when it comes to family. Our only disappointment this year was the fact that John’s family was unable to join us. They were at a resort in Montana, planning to join us shortly after Christmas, when Lai An became ill with Covid. Fortunately, it appears to be a mild case. The McCances accepted the difficult challenge of finding a Christmas tree, two days before Christmas. Every place they stopped, they were…

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By the time you receive this I will be in Truckee, California, enjoying being with my children and grand-children for Christmas. Years ago, when John was living in San Francisco, he and his friends rented a house there each winter so they could ski at Squaw Valley. Eventually he and one of his friends decided to build one themselves, fronting on Donner Lake. It has turned out to be an ideal year-around vacation home. Our family has been the beneficiaries of many happy vacations there, summers as well as at Christmas. Christmas letters are formulaic, either chronological or family tree…

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